An uneventful day

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Search for Digs

Having mooched off Martin and Corinna too long, I searched for a place to which I could move, closer to town. I had wanted to stay with a family so that I could get a lot of practice in conversation, and I began looking well before I arrived, but had no success. I figured that I could continue looking during my first few days here.

I tried a number of services, and I even visited the Jűdische Gemeinde (Jewish Community). Nothing useful showed up. Then I started looking for pensions and apartments.

I think I have settled on one of two locations: a pension just off the Kurfurstendamm and near the school and several synagogues or an apartment near the Museuminsel (Museum Island) directly in the center of town, but far from synagogues and the school. I must decide by 10:00 tomorrow morning.

Class today was routine, but had one aspect that was noteworthy. I take it that the study material is written, in part, for people who are immigrating into Germany. Some of that stuff is not interesting to me.

As my hosts would be returning home late, I decided to eat in town tonight.

When everyone got home, very tired, Martin opened a bottle of wine and we talked about music and then ventured again into politics. When he gets into that subject, Martin forgets that he is tired and becomes very expressive. Today the topic was the failure of democracies. Martin is such a cynic.

His premise tonight was that democracies, and especially that of the USA, are all failing because people don't vote with their brains but with their feelings. Indeed, how can anyone disagree with that contention? But much of the rest of the discussion was about how, or even whether, such a dysfunction could be resolved.

By the time the bottle of wine was done, we had again ended in a vague disagreement. I think that sometimes he plays the devil's advocate, just to make the discussion lively. We wished each other einen guten Schlaf (sleep well).

Spending the next hour catching up with my blogs, I finally went to bed at 12:30.